"The encyclical [Humanae Vitae] of Pope Paul on birth control is true and must be
followed by mankind. There shall be no rationalization of sin." – Our Lady
of the Roses, October 2, 1976

Pope John Paul
II warned Catholic theologians in 1987, "The Church's teaching on
contraception does not belong in the category of matter open to free discussion
among theologians. Teaching the contrary amounts to leading the moral
consciences of spouses into error."[1]

The Holy
Father's words fell on deaf ears, just as Pope Paul VI's words did in 1968, the
year Humanae Vitae was published.

Contraception
is defined as any direct, positive frustration of any phase in the process of
conception before, during, or after a voluntary act of intercourse. Tragically,
many Catholics are practicing contraception in open rebellion to the Vicar of
Christ and the law of God, even though it is objectively a mortal sin to do so.
As Pope Pius XI wrote many years ago in Casti
Connubii, "No reason, however grave, can make what is intrinsically
contrary to nature to be in conformity with nature and morally right. And since
the conjugal act by its very nature is destined for the begetting of children,
those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose
are acting against nature, and are doing something that is base and
intrinsically immoral".

Pope Pius XI
also wrote: "The Catholic Church ... raises her voice as a sign of her
divine mission, and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use of marriage
exercised in such a way that through human effort the act is deprived of its
natural power to procreate human life violates the law of God and of nature,
and those who commit such an action are stained with the guilt of grave sin.”[2]

Pope
Paul VI was prophetic

In 1968, many
Catholics had hoped that Pope Paul VI would condone the already widespread
practice of using "The Pill." When he reaffirmed traditional Catholic
opposition, millions of Catholics flouted his position. By 1977, a Gallup Poll
found that 73 percent of Catholics said one could be a good Catholic and ignore
the Pope.

Nothing could
be farther from the truth.

In his
prophetic encyclical against contraception (Humanae
Vitae, 1968), Pope Paul predicted that contraceptive use would encourage
man to lose respect for woman, considering her "as a mere instrument of
selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved
companion."Through abortion and
contraception, women have been degraded to an object of sexual use. Many
relationships now are devoid of any authentic interest in the other, because
abortion and contraception have opened an even wider door for manipulation. But
this can never be Christian love. As Pope Paul VI told Jean Guitton, "...
when one has passed beyond that stage of egoism, when one has truly understood
that loved is shared joy, a mutual gift, then one comes to what is truly love."[3]

Because the
world and many in the Church have rejected Pope Paul's words, we are witnessing
what one writer has called a worldwide "sexual holocaust."

Pope John
Paul II

Speaking at
the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver, Colorado, the Holy Father called
contraception "inherently evil." He challenged our country with these
words:"America, you must come out
of your comfortable lifestyles now and you must come out into the streets and
into the public places and you must shout the Gospel of Life from the rooftop.
Do not be afraid. Jesus Christ is with you."

Pope John Paul
II points out in his encyclical Evangelium
Vitae that the "contraceptive mentality" has become a breeding
ground for abortion: "Such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality
unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a
self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to
personal fulfillment," the Pope writes. "The life which could result
from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and
abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed
contraception."

The following
quote from the Holy Father is very profound, and is worth re-reading: "the
innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and
wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory
language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads
not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification
of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in
personal totality." (Familiaris
Consortio, #19)

As Dr. Donald
DeMarco writes, "For the Holy Father, contraception compromises intimacy
between man and God, and between husband and wife."

Archbishop
Chaput

Archbishop
Charles Chaput of Denver, Colorado has written a marvelous pastoral letter
commemorating Pope Paul's Humanae Vitae.
Chaput writes that thirty years ago [as of 1999] Pope Paul VI "triggered a
struggle within the Church which continues to mark American Catholic life even
today. The irony is that the people who dismissed Church teaching in the 1960s
soon discovered that they had subverted their own ability to pass anything
along to their children. The result is that the Church now must evangelize a
world of their children's children--adolescents and young adults raised in
moral confusion, often unaware of their own moral heritage, who hunger for
meaning, community, and love with real substance."

Archbishop
Chaput also notes that Pope Paul VI warned of four cultural problems that would
worsen, if Church teachings regarding married life and contraception were
ignored:

1. The first
would be a rise in "conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of
morality."

2. Second, men
would lose respect for women, ignoring issues of their physical and emotional
health even more than in the past and exploit them as instruments of selfish
pleasure.

3. Third,
contraception would be abused by "public authorities who take no heed of
moral exigencies." Today, first-world leaders regularly export
"contraceptives, abortion and sterilization" to developing nations,
often as a prerequisite for financial aid.

4. Finally, human
beings would be tempted to believe that they have "unlimited
dominion" over their bodies.

Pope Paul VI
was indeed a prophet.

More
perspectives on contraception

Dr. Donald
DeMarco, well-known Catholic philosopher and author, has written a very informative
book entitled New Perspectives on
Contraception. Anyone with a desire to learn more on this subject should
read his book, which has already brought enlightenment and inspiration to many
Catholic couples. He writes, "Contraception is part of a philosophy that
implies that when it comes to having children, the husband and wife (or the
producers) should be the only ones in charge."[4]
He also warns that a couple's use of contraception is in a way playing God:
"Contraception is an attempt to disenfranchise God from the matter of
creating new life and putting the responsibility solely in the hands of
humans."[5] Dr.
DeMarco’s analysis is similar to that made by the Holy Father in his powerful
January 17, 1984 address to priests in Rome: “When … through contraception
married couples remove from the exercise of their conjugal sexuality its
potential creative capacity, they claim a power which belongs solely to
God.“The Holy Father then warns that
“… contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful as never to
be, for any reason, justified.To think
or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life situations
may arise in which it’s lawful not to recognize God as God.”

Compromised
marital intimacy is another causality of this practice, warns Dr. DeMarco:.
"Contraception compromises the intimacy between husband and wife because
it negates part of their being, in particular, that which is ordered to
procreation," he writes."Another
way of expressing this 'compromise' is to say that the unselfishness of their
spousal love is diluted by the presence of self-interest."[6]
Dr. DeMarco also emphasizes that contraception allows spouses "to go
through the motions of being intimate without their being truly intimate, that
is, unreservedly and unconditionally so."[7]
He sums up the whole theme of his book by noting that "the use of
contraception is not compatible with the kind of pure and total gift that
marriage asks of husband and wife."[8]By contraception,couples do not give their totality to each other because
theywithhold the gift of fertility, as
expressed by Msgr. David Liptak: “By practicing contraception, couples
‘celebrate’ the ‘nuptial’ meaning of their bodies while at the same time
refusing to submit themselves to the blessings of fertility.”[9]

The fact that contraception inclines couples towards
selfishness has been brought out in many studies. "Contraception expresses
a lack of desire to subordinate sexual impulses to the will and plan of
God,"[10] writes Dr.
Siegfried Ernst. Wanda Poltawska observes that contraception "destroys
love, leads to unfaithfulness, and causes disintegration of the marriage."[11]
She is absolutely right. Since the Pill began to be sold in 1960, divorces have
tripled, out-of-wedlock births jumped from 224,000 to 1.2 million, abortions
doubled, and cohabitation soared 10-fold from 430,000 to 4.2 million.On the other hand, among married couples
practicing National Family Planning, divorce is rare.Joseph Rotzer, M.D., author of the sympto-thermal method, reports
not a single divorce or abortion among 1,400 married couples who used NFP.And Couple to Couple League Founder John
Kippley reports a 1.3% divorce rate among married couples who teach NFP.[12]

Without a
trusting faith in God's love and providence, a couple will be tempted to turn
away from the Church's teaching on contraception. Paul Quay brings this up
quite well: "God, through His Church, both denounces contraception and
proffers the graces to regulate the size of one's family by continence. Disbelief
in the one truth implies disobedience in the other."[13]Explaining the tragic personal consequences
of using contraception, Msgr. David Liptak writes, “A person who performs a
sexual action contrary to the authentic meaning of human sexuality—by
deliberating separating the life-giving dimension from the love-giving
dimension (by deliberating excluding the procreative aspect)—distorts his or
her own personality, and hence crosses the moral law by this very fact….”[14]

Mother Teresa
of Calcutta, in her speech at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast, spoke against
contraception: "The way to plan the family is Natural Family Planning, not
contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a
husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self
and so destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife
must turn the attention to each other. Once that living love is destroyed by
contraception, abortion follows very easily."

Dietrich von
Hildebrand, whom Pope Pius XII called a 20th Century Doctor of the
Church, writes: "We can now see more clearly the difference between
natural and artificial birth control.The sinfulness of artificial birth control is rooted in the arrogation
of the right to separate the actualized love union in marriage from a possible
conception, to sever the wonderful, deeply mysterious connection instituted by
God.This mystery is approached in an
irreverent attitude. Here we are confronted with the fundamental sin of
irreverence toward God, the denial of our creaturehood, the acting as if we
were our own lords.… It is the same sinfulness that lies in suicide or in
euthanasia, in both of which we act as if we were masters of life."[15]